Sports & Entertainment Beat

Super Bowl

With the Super Bowl coming up, it is important for brands looking to capitalize on football-themed promotions to remember that the terms “Super Bowl” and “Super Sunday” are registered trademarks guarded by the National Football League (NFL) more closely than a shutdown corner on a wide receiver.

Because there is a fine line between permissible fair uses of Super Bowl and Super Sunday (e.g., in on-air banter and news and sports reports) and impermissible promotional uses that may infringe the NFL’s trademark, here are some guidelines to keep you from going “offsides:”

With the Super Bowl coming up, it is important for brands looking to capitalize on football-themed promotions to remember that the terms “Super Bowl” and “Super Sunday” are registered trademarks guarded by the National Football League (NFL) more closely than a shutdown corner on a wide receiver. Because there is a fine line between permissible fair uses of Super Bowl and Super Sunday (e.g., in on-air banter and news and sports reports) and impermissible promotional uses that may infringe the NFL’s trademark, here are some guidelines to keep you from going “offsides:”

Pick Team Members who have Contacts, Industry Knowledge, High Ethical Standards, and Brand-building Acumen.

Just like regular sports teams, some business teams are good and some are bad. Some teams have great players, but the players don’t work well together, because there is no strategy in place, and each player approaches the game from his or her own perspective. As a result, plays can be disjointed, unproductive and do little to advance the cause of winning the game.

The same thing can happen with the business management of an athlete’s or entertainer’s career.  When an athlete or entertainer receives what seem to be contradictory opinions from different professionals on his or her business team or worse, does not receive timely feedback from a team member, he or she can be overwhelmed, and the decision-making process disrupted, or even stalled, resulting in loss of valuable opportunities, time, money - and no one winning the game.